108 MY STUDIO NEIGHBORS 



that the flower was as a voice in the wilderness. 

 In 1735, it is true, faint premonitions of its pres- 

 ent message began to be heard through their 

 first though faltering interpreter, Christian Conrad 

 Sprengel, a German botanist and school-master, 

 who upon one occasion, while looking into the 

 chalice of the wild geranium, received an inspira- 

 tion which led him to consecrate his life thence- 

 forth to the solution of the floral hieroglyphics. 

 Sprengel, it may be said, was the first to exalt 

 the flower from the mere status of a botanical 

 specimen. 



This philosophic observer was far in advance 

 of his age, and to his long and arduous researches 

 — a basis built upon successively by Andrew 

 Knight, Kohlreuter, Herbert, Darwin, Lubbock, 

 Miiller, and others — we owe our present divina- 

 tion of the flowers. 



In order to fully appreciate this present con- 

 trast, it is well to briefly trace the progress, step 

 by step, from the consideration of the mere ana- 

 tomical and physiological specimen of the earlier 

 botanists to the conscious blossom of to-day, with 

 its embodied hopes, aspirations, and welcome com- 

 panionships. 



Most of my readers are familiar with the gen- 

 eral construction of a flower, but in order to in- 



